New superyacht design from architect Zaha Hadid looks more like a spacecraft or a whale skeleton than a ship

They look more like a spacecraft than an ocean-going vessel, but new designs from renowned London-based architect Zaha Hadid for shipyard Blohm+Voss’s superyacht could soon be real.

“Until now, we’ve had to wait for a client to come to us with their idea and design, and there could still be a tendering process,” Dr. Herbert Aly, who runs Blohm+Voss, told Superyacht News. “When we decided to come to market with our own concept, it had to be something truly unexpected and exceptional. That was the basis of this collaboration with Zaha Hadid.”

The concept is called “Unique Circle Yachts” and was presented publicly in London on Tuesday night. The “circle” is made up of five smaller yachts and a central “mothership” superyacht.

“The webbed formation of the boat’s upper area lends to the overall natural aesthetic employed in the external appearance, which references marine formations,” writes designboom of the vessels. “This external shell visually and physically connects the different levels and decks of the ship via diagonals, opposing traditional yacht concepts that follow a stricter horizontal order.”

The interior of the ships are more traditional, leaning toward opulent minimalism as opposed to the naturalistic curves of the outside. However, a core concept of the design is that the interior and the exterior flow into each other naturally.

“It will be expensive, for sure, as everything from Zaha is,” Dr. Aly told Superyacht News. “This is not a project where you can see the exterior styling is done by X and the interiors are dome by Y. Here, the interior and exterior are connected in a fluid dynamic; it’s one philosophy. My best guess is that this will be built when both the interior and exterior are in Zaha’s hands.”

When commenting on the ships, Hadid — known for her swooping, sinuous designs — talked about the balance between design and practicality.

“As a dynamic object that moves in dynamic environments, the design of a yacht must incorporate additional parameters beyond those for architecture — which all become much more extreme on water,” Hadid told Deezeenmagazine. “Each yacht is an engineered platform that integrates specific hydrodynamic and structural demands together with the highest levels of comfort, spatial quality and safety.”

Hadid, who won the 2004 Pritzer Architecture Prize, was behind the designs of the London Olympic aquatic centre and the Riverside Museum in Glasgow.

Hadid is also designing the Olympic stadium in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics.